On the hottest days of the year, it's not uncommon for regional electricity systems to become so overloaded by demand that they come within a hair’s breadth of failing completely. (It happens in Texas all the time.) Fortunately, utilities have come up with a cheap and easy way to overcome this problem: they offer their customers a cash incentive to sign up for a special kind of thermostat over which the utility has limited control. Then, when it gets nasty out, the utility can literally save the grid by turning up the temperature in your home just a teeny tiny …

The atmospheric pressure is dropping in D.C. as the hurricane prepares to move through. But in front of the White House, where protestors are pushing Obama to nix the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, the pressure has probably just ratcheted up. The State Department just released a report saying that the pipeline would have "minimal" environmental effects, which is a big step toward approving its construction. Thanks a lot, State Department. This definitely isn't the last word on the subject. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn't have to weigh in on the pipeline until the end of the year, and the project …

Texas' over-the-top, economically devastating, record-breaking drought is likely to turn into a grinding, multi-year drought, reports Kate Galbraith in the Texas Tribune. That could put it on track to compete with the state's worst-ever dry spell in the 1950s, which in turn can barely compete with the prehistoric mega-droughts Texas used to experience. In other words, Texas is a dry state with a delicate climate, and climate change is only going to make things worse. "We can't say with certainty whether this particular drought is in and of itself a product of climate change," said David Brown, a regional official …

Buying a knock-off Louis Vuitton bag is one thing, but in Europe, farmers are buying knock-off pesticides. Counterfeit pesticides have become a multimillion industry over there, and if that sounds like bad news, it is: According to the Wall Street Journal, these knock-offs contain a solvent that the European Union banned because it's a huge problem for pregnant women. The WSJ's article also makes the E.U.'s efforts to deal with the problem sound like a giant clusterf*ck. There are loopholes in counterfeiting laws that mean customs can't seize the fake pesticides. The company that's been ripped off has to deal …

With Hurricane Irene on its way, New Yorkers head to Trader Joe's and make jokes (I think they're jokes?) about the proper amount to tip delivery guys who come out during a hurricane. Why does a super-walkable condo building in Denver include eight floors of parking spaces? (Answer: There's no good answer.) So weird: Even Sen. Jim Inhofe wants Mitt Romney to stop waffling on climate change. This may be the only issue Inhofe and environmentalists have ever agreed on. To solve its pollution problem, China's using logic generally favored by house cats: stick your head under a blanket, because …

"Oops," says the United States Geological Survey, "We used to think the shale on the East coast of the U.S., which gas companies are currently fracking into submission, had a metric buttload of natural gas. Turns out it only 0.2 metric buttloads." (I'm paraphrasing.) Yesterday, the USGS's estimate of U.S. reserves of gas trapped in the Marcellus shale went from 410 trillion "technically recoverable" cubic feet of gas to 84 trillion in the span of a single report. Because this week is Ragnarok and, basically, ghouls are in charge, the natural gas industry actually cheered this report, noting that it …

The U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting that hurricane Irene is going to strafe pretty much every inch of the most densely populated part of America, i.e. the East Coast. So if you live anywhere from the Carolinas to Boston, is it time to panic? It would be, if panicking actually helped! Here’s what you can do instead. First thing to understand is whether, and to what extent, your area is under threat. Here's NOAA's official map of the projected storm track.  And here's a big map mashing up the NOAA predictions for the hurricane’s track with social …

OnEarth takes a close look at why exactly Warren Buffett has been sniffing around Wyoming coal mines lately. Short answer: China wants coal. As George Black explains: Although worldwide energy-related CO2 emissions rose more last year than at any time since 1969, and the use of coal grew faster than that of any other fossil fuel, U.S. demand has actually flatlined. In 2000 coal accounted for just over half of our electricity supply. By 2010 it was down to 45 percent. … Asia is a different matter. … [C]ompanies like Peabody and Arch Coal are convinced that Asian demand has …

Here's another bit of info to include in your "man, the Koch brothers are eeeevil" file. In environmental circles, the Koch family is best known for its funding of climate deniers, but Koch Industries also owns 56 facilities that use petrochemicals. The government is a teensy bit worried about the attraction these facilities could hold for terrorists, but the company has spent its time and money lobbying against stricter safeguards for chemical facilities. Hey, regulations are regulations, whether they protect against pollution or terrorism, and all regulations are for liberal weenies! iWatch News found that 4.8 million people live within …

Conflicts across the world can be connected to climate phenomena like El Niño. Mitt Romney: so wimpy on climate issues, it hurts. Some green jobs require an MBA. Drivers are still cutting down on miles, even though gas prices are creeping downward. An energy consulting group says the EPA and Cornell professor Robert Howarth both made erroneous assumptions that led them to overestimate the amount of methane that hydrofracking releases. The SEC is digging into fracking, too. The financial watchdog wants information about fracking chemicals and environmental impacts. Vermonters want solar projects, not wind projects, which they say would damage …